First Parr Recorded on the Culter Catchment

We were pleased to discover fry on the Culter Catchment last year and today the first survey by Pamlea Esson and her team found a number of parr in the Upper Gormack Burn about 10km above the fish pass on the Culter Dam, which was installed in 2014 to open up new spawning and rearing habitat. The team have several more sites to survey on the catchment and look forward to finding more young salmon, which we will report in due course.

​With the news and social media rife with the invasion of Pacific pink salmon, we want to give people an update on the situation on the Dee and what we are doing about it. The situation has developed rapidly in the last month.

As a charity, the River Dee Trust has to raise funds to support its work on the River Dee. We have been humbled by the level of support throughout the year. In the last couple of months, we have had two fundraising events, which have raised £11500, all thanks to the community and River Dee family.

The smolt tagging and tracking project is a three year programme of work. Fifty smolts, captured in the lower catchment, were fitted with internal acoustic tags and tracked in spring 2016. These smolts were tracked as they migrated through the lower 22 miles of the Dee and inner harbour.

Tackling invasive non-native plants along the banks of the River Dee – such as Japanese knotweed, giant hogweed, Himalayan balsam and North American skunk cabbage - has become a priority for the River Office because of their potential impact on our river and its existing, native species.